Will be offering a new product for FE's...

[blykins]

I'm going to be offering an enclosed cam tunnel "kit" for FE's.  Enclosed cam tunnels have been around for decades and the horsepower gains have been solidly established.  Others in the past have completed "A-B" tests and have seen a difference of about 3%.  A pretty substantial little bump, especially when engines are in the 600-700 hp range. 

If you're like me, I'm not artistically inclined.  I'm not good with metal shaping at all.   So, I'm having these made with the help and ingenuity of a fellow forum member:





The front segment has a Tig welded side to fit around the distributor cutout. 

The tools will come with the kit.  There will be 2 aluminum flanged pieces that fit inside of the cam bearing that will serve as a platform to hold the tunnel segments until the epoxy sets up.  This needs to be collapsible, so there will also be some milled plastic pieces that fit under the aluminum supports.   They can easily be broken down and fished through the cam bearings to remove them. 

Typically guys use JB Weld or Splash Zone epoxy to hold segments like these in place. 

The camshaft and lifters will run submerged in oil.   Instead of draining onto the rotating assembly, the oil will collect in the lifter valley.  This can be evacuated through several different methods, from draining out the front of the block, to being scavenged with a dry sump scavenge point in the lifter valley. 

This has been a long time coming.  If some of you remember, I started this several years ago, starting out with an enclosed tunnel made of bronze, where the bronze acted as the cam bearings themselves.  Finishing the ID became the hard part and since I had planned to market these the entire time, I knew that guys wouldn't want to try and seek out a shop who had a line hone mandrel that would fit.   On top of all of that, I was not 100% convinced that a bronze bearing would last like a conventional cam bearing.  In lieu of my 397ci Tunnel Port dyno mule, which has a $$$ custom billet flat plane crankshaft, aluminum rods, a billet core flat tappet camshaft, etc., I didn't feel like putting it all in jeopardy with a cam bearing material that hadn't been tested.  Sometimes simplicity wins, so this setup just uses a standard cam bearing set and a set of formed/welded sheet metal covers that afix to the block. 

Still looking at some cost analysis, but hope to be advertising these in the next week or so.  Stay tuned, more to come.

[machoneman]

Very cool Brent! The execution is just as good as the idea in my mind. Slick on how it keeps the shields in place until the epoxy dries.

I'll venture that Comp/Elim. folks dabbled with this idea even before the '70's Pro Stock guys did. It's right in line with low-drag thin rings, minimizing internal parasitic drag so to speak meaning more crank side hp. Roller bearing cam bearings also reduce drag yet mostly require an aftermarket block and custom diameter cam blank. But this you already know. 

[Dumpling]

Would like to hear more about your experience with a flat plane crank.
Source, price, real-life experience.
Vibration issues? Performance effects?

[blykins]

It's taking me forever to reply on here.  Every time I click, it takes about 30 seconds to do what I clicked.

Dumpling,

I have a big ZERO experience with flat plane cranks, but that's one of the reasons I do dyno mules....so I can learn some new stuff that may lead to legitimate performance upgrades.

Obviously, no one makes a flat plane crank for the FE.  I do a bit of business with Bryant, so I asked them if they had ever done one.  They said no.  So that led to the question of what it would cost to do one.  Since they had never done one and weren't sure of the programming costs, they shot me a price of $10k.  Ok.....

So I called Winberg and asked them if they had ever done a flat plane FE crank.  Nope.   But they said they would do one for considerably less money than Bryant (but still $$$$).  So I have one on order.   Lead time is 24 weeks (I ordered it quite a while ago though). 

I don't know what to expect.  Counterweights are much smaller, which means the crank will be lighter, which means it will accelerate quicker.  I'm using custom aluminum rods with Honda rod journals, so the rotating assembly is going to be *very* light. 

Since flat plane cranks can't use the same firing order as a cross plane crank, that led me to having to order a custom camshaft for the engine.  I'm not talking about a regular custom grind, I'm talking about a *custom* camshaft.  There are a couple of firing orders that I could use, but the one that made most sense to me is the one that Ferrari uses.....so I ordered it with that firing order.

Onward and upward...

[MeanGene]

So... thinking like an out-of-the-box retired engineer. So I have several CO blocks, and have been considering drilling the oil passages to allow pressure oil to bushed solid roller lifters. I'm tossing in my head that if the enclosed tunnel fills up with oil, would this not bathe the bushed (or roller bearing) solid roller lifters and be more than adequate? Even without pressure oil to the tunnel, would not oil draining from the top end load it up? Even if it was 50% full that would be a bath for the lifters. One could always squirt just a bit in there from the bottom of the center gallery, but shouldn't have to. I'm thinking with the cam & lifter action and constant drainback from the top end (like from the early "long" drainback tins etc) there would be adequate recycling of the oil from the tunnel, while keeping enough in there to keep the bushed rollers happy? I'm thinking I will be very interested in a set of these for my 454

[Stangman]

I had my block drilled for oiling to the lifters and I have a little bleed off MeanGene. When I’m hot like been driving for let’s say ten miles my oil pressure in gear at 850 or so is less tan 20 so until I get a converter (cams a little bigger than the 3000 stall I have) I rest my foot on the gas to keep it at 1000 and then I have like 23-25.
But I agree you probably wouldn’t have to drill if you had the tunnel.
Also going with the whole parasitic draw stuff you could use the roller cam bearings
Considering they will also be bathed in oil.
Should also help them last longer, I think in general cam lifters in an FE are a weak link.
Plus if the tunnel is worth 3 percent maybe with the roller bearings might bring it up a percent or 2.
Brent whatever happened to those bronze bushing I saw a video you had. Why are you going to regular bearings. I seem to remember something about them being to small after installation.

[Dumpling]

Very interested in your progress on this project.
Thank you

[blykins]

I had my block drilled for oiling to the lifters and I have a little bleed off MeanGene. When I’m hot like been driving for let’s say ten miles my oil pressure in gear at 850 or so is less tan 20 so until I get a converter (cams a little bigger than the 3000 stall I have) I rest my foot on the gas to keep it at 1000 and then I have like 23-25.
But I agree you probably wouldn’t have to drill if you had the tunnel.
Also going with the whole parasitic draw stuff you could use the roller cam bearings
Considering they will also be bathed in oil.
Should also help them last longer, I think in general cam lifters in an FE are a weak link.
Plus if the tunnel is worth 3 percent maybe with the roller bearings might bring it up a percent or 2.
Brent whatever happened to those bronze bushing I saw a video you had. Why are you going to regular bearings.

Joe, I spoke about why I changed to regular bearings in my first post up above. 

Roller cam bearings don't offer any performance gains, unfortunately, and with the larger babbitt bearings that are available these days, I think most guys are reverting back to a standard style cam bearing.  I use the babbitt 60mm bearings in some of my BBF pulling engines.

Gene, I'm not sure if the tunnel would help a roller lifter survive or not.  They do get splash from the rotating assembly in a regular scenario, but a pressure fed bearing is always going to be the best choice.  Maybe the consistent/constant bath in oil would help some. 

[BattlestarGalactic]

Strange to hear that "roller cam brgs" add nothing performance wise.  But if you think about it, the cam runs on an oil film, so the fact there is roller brgs has nill effect.

I put roller brgs in my 496.  It was a WTH, if you are fixing it you might as well fix it big scenario.  The flat tappet ate the std bearings so what's another $500 in the mix of buying a cam, roller lifters, TnD rockers, etc.

[JC-427Stroker]

Since flat plane cranks can't use the same firing order as a cross plane crank, that led me to having to order a custom camshaft for the engine.  I'm not talking about a regular custom grind, I'm talking about a *custom* camshaft.  There are a couple of firing orders that I could use, but the one that made most sense to me is the one that Ferrari uses.....so I ordered it with that firing order.

Onward and upward...

Sounds like a fun R&D project.  Good luck with it.
Will you be running 180* headers ?

1-8-3-6-4-5-2-7   ?

[blykins]

Since flat plane cranks can't use the same firing order as a cross plane crank, that led me to having to order a custom camshaft for the engine.  I'm not talking about a regular custom grind, I'm talking about a *custom* camshaft.  There are a couple of firing orders that I could use, but the one that made most sense to me is the one that Ferrari uses.....so I ordered it with that firing order.

Onward and upward...

Sounds like a fun R&D project.  Good luck with it.
Will you be running 180* headers ?

1-8-3-6-4-5-2-7   ?

Yes, 18364527.   Some of the other firing orders seemed like they smacked the crank in the same spot, so I steered away from them. 

[JC-427Stroker]

sounds like a nice billet cam core....  lol

[machoneman]

A really cool idea Brent!

I'll venture you'll take a block/heads already run on a TP, HR or whatever FE design and compare the same dyno results but now with that revised F.O., flat plane crank and header design. Have I guessed correctly?

[blykins]

No A-B tests. 

[Hemi Joel]

The advantage that I have heard touted for the roller cam bearings is that they use splash oiling. So you are not pumping oil into the cam bearings, which ends up in the crank windage. It would seem that the enclosed cam tunnel would eliminate that advantage.